Answer:
Actually Romans was written mainly to answer this very question. We think Romans is like a Christianity 101 manual… but in actuality it was written to resolve the Jewish/Gentile controversy alive in the Roman church (it just so happens that in solving this burning question, the Christian gospel gets laid out very clearly in the first 8 chapters).
The short answer is that the Jews do not have a special means of salvation. They are saved by faith in Christ, or not at all.
The point is made all through Romans 2,3. First the fact that Jews and Gentiles alike are under the condemnation of Law (3:9). Then the fact that a man can be a Jew inwardly if he is circumcised in his heart (2:29,29), it’s not just a physical thing that matters to God. Then the fact that God does not show favoritism, 2:11, between Jew and Gentile. And finally that Paul says,
Rom 3:22, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference”.
In context we know what he means. No difference between what? Jews and Gentiles. There is no difference between how people get in on this faith righteousness. It comes equally to anyone who believes, without respect to race or prior status as “God’s People” or not. God has opened up the door to all peoples and the means of salvation is the same FOR ALL, there is no difference.
What seals the case is what Paul says in
Rom 10:12-13 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile — the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
Conversely, everyone who does not call on the name of the Lord will not be saved.
So then you wonder what about all those Jews who didn’t (and still don’t) believe in Christ? Are they lost? Yes. And tragically, that is a lot of people. But it’s a lot less than the number of Gentiles who are lost, from a sheer statistical point of view. But God has made the means of salvation as easy as it could be, for as many as possible, because he has made it by grace through faith, not by works or pedigree or lineage, or law keeping or moral performance or all the things that only a select few of us could ever achieve. Instead the Gospel standard is as fair as possible: Everyone gets invited. Everyone gets in the same way. Everyone can meet the standard.
Now, the natural question then is, what’s the good of being a Jew, one of God’s chosen? Much! and Paul lists the benefits: Rom 9:4-5
“Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ…”
They are the natural branches, we Gentiles the grafted in ones. They are the ‘natural stock”, we got added late in the game. When they do trust in Christ, the Messianic Jews (and there are many) have a richness to their faith that Gentiles sometimes don’t have because of how they see it in the context of the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants… we miss out on a lot of that depth.
Now, the Jews are hardened to Christ in large numbers and this is bad, but it opened up the door for us, so that is good (Romans 11:11). And the situation is not hopeless. First, there is always a remnant of Jews who believe (11:5). Second Paul hoped (and we still hope) that the success of the church rouses the Jews to a good kind of jealousy and their hardening will not be permanent, but eventually they will return. Speaking of the Jews Paul says:
Rom 11:15-16 For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
This is a bit mysterious, but most scholars believe that he anticipates that when the Jews accept faith in Christ in large numbers, it will be at the Resurrection (life from the dead) – at or near the end of time. When the Jews turn, he’s saying, it’s curtains, the Day all things are made new. For he says further,
Rom 11:25-26 “Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved…”
So this speaks of a definitive moment in time, when “the full number of gentiles has come in” – this is reminiscent of “the gospel preached to the whole world" and what happens then? "...then the End will come”. Most Reformers believed that at the end of time a great revival would sweep over God’s Chosen people and they would turn to Christ in great numbers, joining the Church. So Paul did not encourage Gentiles to gloat (and heaven forbid that we EVER become anti-Semitic as many deluded Christians have!) but to be humble and thankful and long for the day that all Israel is joined in one Church (Jews and Gentiles – all “spiritual Israel”, all the circumcised of heart) in eternity.
